Gary Shteyngart (Absurdistan) presents another profane and dizzying satire, a dystopic vision of the future as convincing—and, in its way, as frightening—as Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's also a pointedly old-fashioned May-December love story, complete with references to Chekhov and Tolstoy. Mired in protracted adolescence, middle-aged Lenny Abramov is obsessed with living forever (he works for an Indefinite Life Extension company), his books (an anachronism of this indeterminate future), and Eunice Park, a 20-something Korean-American. Eunice, though reluctant and often cruel, finds in Lenny a loving but needy fellow soul and a refuge from her overbearing immigrant parents. Narrating in alternate chapters—Lenny through old-fashioned diary entries, Eunice through her online correspondence—the pair reveal a funhouse-mirror version of contemporary America: terminally indebted to China, controlled by the singular Bipartisan Party (Big Brother as played by a cartoon otter in a cowboy hat), and consumed by the superficial. Shteyngart's earnestly struggling characters—along with a flurry of running gags—keep the nightmare tour of tomorrow grounded. A rich commentary on the obsessions and catastrophes of the information age and a heartbreaker worthy of its title, this is Shteyngart's best yet.

Thumbs up.

Just preordered this:

I will probably read Ready, Player One, which I still haven't gotten around to even though Evan gave me a free copy at some point, in the meantime.

I just read Brilliance and A better world, two books in the start of a trilogy (next one not til next year)... Really enjoyed them, very entertaining thrillers... Now reading some other Marcus Sakey books, just really liking his writing style

I want to read the new Harper Lee book, but i am sad to know that Atticus Finch is now apparently a shithead. Part of me tjinks she is a hack that let Truman Capote let her put her name on one of the greatest novels ever written.

"God has a plan for me and this team. It's obvious I don't need to win [the Heisman] until next year.' Colt f'n McCoy

Finished The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 by Robert Middlekauff, which is part of The Oxford History of the United States. A huge amount of it is familiar from the 8,000 times you studied American history in elementary/junior high/high school, but the book did a good job of fleshing out what was going on over on the British side of things which provides good insight as to why things shook out like they did.

Starting The Long Tomorrow by Leigh Brackett. Brackett is best known for her lengthy career as a screenwriter. Her career began with The Big Sleep and ended with the first draft of the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. That's a hell of a run.

Continuing my mid-20th century sci-fi kick with The Stars Our Destination, which I found recommended in a Reddit thread. Neil Gaiman wrote the introduction in the version I bought and it included quite a bit of praise, but he also noted it was not necessarily a difficult read, but one where you had to pay attention.

It took some time to get into, but I am nearing the end and enjoying it. It's funny how writers 50-60 years ago envisioned the future.

"God has a plan for me and this team. It's obvious I don't need to win [the Heisman] until next year.' Colt f'n McCoy

Music City Mafia wrote:Empire of the Summer Moon by SC Gwynne is an amazing read about the Comanche tribe and Quannah Parker.

This author (SC Gwynn) has a new book out called 'Rebel Yell,' which is a biography about Stonewall Jackson. Just based on how well written his previous book on Quannah Parker was, I plan on reading this one soon. If you haven't read his other book (Empire...), I strongly re-recommend it.

I'm about 100 pages into Playing To the Edge: American Intelligence In the Age of Terror by former NSA director Michael Hayden. I strongly disagree with quite a bit of what the NSA did during his tenure but I think his heart was in the right place. It's about as much of a page turner as nonfiction can be and I highly recommended checking this out if the subject holds any interest for you at all.

If you read the Game of Thrones series and are getting impatient waiting for lazy fat fuck George RR Martin to finish The Winds of Winter check out The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. It's entertaining. The writing style is far less laborious. Best of all it's done so you don't have to wait to see if the author dies before the whole deal gets resolved.

I hit the pause button on The Crying of Lot 49 about three weeks ago and hadn't read anything. Last night, though, I started Tom Robbins' semi-fictional memoir, Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life. I should say I started after trivia so I didn't get far, but I like his prose.

After this I'll knock out one of those Palahniuk books you loaned me.

"God has a plan for me and this team. It's obvious I don't need to win [the Heisman] until next year.' Colt f'n McCoy